CRUSADER DOWN
On the morning of Aug. 31, 1966, Aviation Photographer’s Mate 2nd Class Mike Delamore boarded a tubby U.S. Navy amphibious helicopter with his camera and plenty of film. He expected to shoot a typical day in a chopper crew’s life flying combat search and rescue (CSAR) over the Gulf of Tonkin. The mission initially offered little excitement. Hours of boredom piled up as the four-man crew flew lazy patterns near Yankee Station—the point in the ocean from which American carriers launched aircraft into North Vietnam—exchanging small talk with their passenger, mugging for his camera and waiting for a distress call.
But Delamore soon found himself in a combat photographer’s dream position, witness to one of the most spectacular rescues of the Vietnam War—a downed pilot plucked from the water in broad daylight in plain view of the enemy despite withering ground fire and a host of other dangers. Newspapers worldwide reprinted Delamore’s photos of the rescue.
The story behind his photos begins with a different kind of aerial photography assignment.
Not long after Delamore got airborne that last day of August 1966, Lt. Cmdr. Thomas Tucker catapulted from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany (CVA-34) in his Vought RF-8G Crusader on a photoreconnaissance mission. Tucker’s mission prep had begun the night before, when he reviewed requirements from the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), based outside Saigon, detailing the types of photos the brass wanted and the location of the target. He determined which cameras and what kind of film he would use, picked up maps of the area, planned his flight and got some sleep before his briefing from Oriskany’s Air Intelligence Office two hours before takeoff the next morning.
